


One forward, three back

by tawg



Series: tumblr ficlets [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Coulson Lives, Gen, M/M, PTS, Post-Avengers, attempted bonding, gentle rebuke, kissing as a symbol of emotional investment, set somewhere around IM3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:58:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony just wants to help Phil adjust to life after not-death. Tony maybe needs to adjust to it himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One forward, three back

Tony makes the first move. Has been making first moves since the agent died. Since Phil. The holding pattern of pressed boundaries that were never crossed wasn’t going to keep Tony penned forever. He needed change. Once it had been a new woman every week, now it was explosions and aliens and that one awful moment of standing at a bedside and thinking that Coulson had died anyway because he had looked so still and cold against the sheets. It's an unfortunate trend, a certain kind of person entering Tony's life and then leaving it too suddenly. 

Coulson being on his feet isn’t good enough. Coulson in his suit with files under his arm and Fury in his ear and no time to stop and chat isn’t good enough. Tony has been trying to talk to him, because nearly dying isn’t something that you bounce back from and having hands inside your chest and metal coiled around your sternum and a brand name stamped into your new heart aren’t just things that you get to sweep under the rug and ignore forever.

So Tony has been trying, has been making the first move. A hundred first moves that are rebuked or ignored or gently mocked. A hundred steps leading up into a spiral and Tony hurls himself from the top by pulling the agent close, admires the landscape as he falls and crashes their mouths together. A suicidal impact and Tony tastes blood and dirt in his mouth for a moment, kisses Phil with anger and fear and determination until it’s chased away, until all he tastes is the bitterness of his own mouth and the stale mint of the toothpaste Phil had used hours earlier. Neither of them are eating much these days, not with all the things in the world that need fixing.

When Tony finally pulls away, Agent Coulson is staring at him patiently. Not waiting for an explanation but waiting for a signal that they can get back to the topic at hand. Tony wants to punch him, shove him away. Settles for grabbing the lapel of Phil’s jacket and shaking him a little.

"Things change," Tony says forcefully, has a whole speech prepared and his lungs full of air to deliver it, but Coulson grasps Tony’s wrist with a surprisingly gentle grip and eases Tony’s hand away.

"Yes," he agrees. "They do." He gives Tony a look that cuts so deep that Tony’s heart stutters for a moment. "Are you sleeping?"

Tony frowns, shifts his weight, pulls his skin away from Coulson’s cool fingers. “This isn’t about me.”

"Of course," Phil replies, and then he returns his attention to the file in his hand, to drawing out lines and patterns that Tony could surely see for himself if only he had it in him to look.

Tony hates not being able to help, to offer something to Phil because nearly dying and loss of self and the desperate struggle to retain anything that felt familiar are common things for him, are perhaps the only emotional subjects on which he can claim expertise. Because Tony has broken a lot of things in his life and he's trying to change, trying to hold together fragile things instead of discarding them.

But Phil always pushes him away, and Tony can’t blame him. Some things don't change at all.


End file.
